CASE STUDY — Hearst Publishing – Innovation in Digital Delivery

Hearst Electronics Group is the largest publisher of product information to the electronics industry. Their directories, eNewsletters, Web sites, Magazines, Webcasts, Inventory access tools, and databases are invaluable resources for engineers involved in product design. Todd Christenson is Publisher, Electronic Products, Hearst Electronics Group. He is responsible for redefining the digital look and feel of Electronic Products.

Electronic Products reports on important developments in products and product technology. Its editorial content serves as a key information source for engineers and managers. Project Analog helps keep EEs current on the latest technology trends in analog electronics and helps them make better-informed part and technology choices. This special digital publication includes a package of technical articles covering such topics as energy management challenges in personal hand held devices, selecting amplifiers to work with thermocouples, and a look at lens drivers used in handset camera modules.

The electronics market is truly global. As such, many international readers prefer to receive and read digital editions of business to business publications. This is especially true in the Far East, where 80 percent of engineers use e-books in their academic training. Therefore, Hearst Electronics Group decided in 2006 to develop a set of unique digital products that would become a competitive advantage in attracting readers and advertisers.

Todd Christenson has extensive experience with the development of digital editions of magazines. He considers Nxtbook to be an outstanding partner in developing the next generation of digital products. When they embarked on Project Analog, the Nxtbook team suggested a designer and was very proactive about being sure that social computing applications such as del.icio.us and Digg would be available to readers. The content display is more expansive and features a special sponsor bar at the right margin of the page. The cover has an animated contest feature to encourage readers to open the digital edition when it is delivered to their desktops. The Hearst team realized the value of providing their readers with links to other important industry information and developed an Analog News page that has links to content found in their competitor’s publications.

Results

• Their digital editions are distinctive and hold readers’ attention. Their session lengths are higher than the industry average.
• The sponsor bar has been a big success, generating a click-through rate that is four times the industry average.
• The Analog News page has been a big hit with readers and is one of the reasons that their subscribers are such loyal readers of the digital edition.
• Print is not dead! Their number of print advertisers has remained constant as the number of digital advertisers has grown. Surprisingly, the URLs found in the print ads are a major source of traffic for the digital editions.
• They have worked hard at building good relationships with major search engines and get solid traffic from them.

Lessons Learned

• The digital edition and Web site work well together. The Web site promotes the latest digital edition and has breaking product news and a powerful product locator search feature.
• To serve global markets, sophisticated digital editions are essential. The speed of delivery of information is important to both readers and advertisers. The cost reductions yielded by digital delivery are substantial.
• Their new design features have helped yield excellent reader behaviors that help sell advertising.
• Given the success of the current digital editions, they are now considering a new set of digital-only products.

Gilbane Group Conclusions

• Their bold decision to link to content in their competitor’s publications has paid off in more frequent reader visits as they become more fully integrated in their readers’ quest for finding the right information from credible sources at the time they need it.
• Their new design feels less like a digital edition of a print product and more like a modern Web 2.0 information application. The bookmarking features are easy to use and search is well integrated. These features enhance the readers’ experiences and build loyalty.

Note: This case study was excerpted from the 2008 Gilbane Report.